Zimbabwe Ousting White Farmers

August 4, 2002|By Rachel L. Swarns The New York Times

BANKET, Zimbabwe — This is the season for winter wheat, the time when lush, green seedlings usually blanket the ground. But these days, the roaring tractors have been silenced and many fertile farms are idle.

Here in this hungry land, where the United Nations says 6 million people -- half the population -- are threatened by famine, the government of President Robert Mugabe has ordered thousands of the country's most productive farmers to stop farming.

The white commercial farmers, who are among the largest producers of wheat and cornmeal, help feed the nation and fuel the economy. But they have been condemned as racists and enemies of the state because they have refused to turn over their land to the government -- land that was seized from blacks during the days of British colonial rule.

And now, officials say, the day of reckoning is finally at hand.

By Thursday, the government has announced, most of the nation's white farmers must leave their farms for good. As the deadline approaches, many farmers are packing their bags.

The threatened expulsion of 2,900 white farmers has shaken a country already reeling from drought, a collapsing economy and the political violence condoned by an increasingly authoritarian government.

Some say officials are punishing the farmers for financing the opposition in the presidential election last March, an election that most Western officials believe was rigged to ensure Mugabe's victory.

Others say that Mugabe, 78, who came to power in the 1980 election that ended white rule, is desperate to secure a place in African history as the revolutionary who returned the land to his impoverished people.

Officials of the World Bank and Western governments agree that land should be redistributed in Zimbabwe, where the legacy of colonialism has left a tiny white minority with more than half the fertile soil. Whites make up only 1 percent of the population. But farmers and foreign donors have balked at participating in this program, which has been dogged by violence and cronyism ever since it was revived two years ago in what is widely viewed as a tactic to bolster Mugabe's waning popularity.

Prominent politicians loyal to Mugabe now control scores of fertile farms while many poor blacks are stranded on arid stretches without adequate water or sanitation.

The government, which claims to have acquired more than 5,000 properties, actually has title deeds to fewer than 100, recent statistics show.

As government-backed militants have swept across the country, invading the farms in the past few years, several white farmers and dozens of black farm workers have been killed, while thousands of other black laborers have been evicted and left homeless.

The government has refused to pay white farmers for their properties, saying it will not pay for land stolen by British settlers. Britain has agreed to finance a well-run land redistribution program, but not the one that is currently in place. So farmers who are forced off their properties receive nothing right now for the land they have lost.

The United States and the European Union, which have already imposed sanctions on top officials, have criticized Zimbabwe's treatment of its farmers and diplomats in Zimbabwe are quietly pressuring officials to reconsider their stance.

It is still unclear how the government will actually deal with whites who defy the deadline.

Some officials have threatened to crack down while others have promised to be lenient with farmers who agree to give up some of their land.

But officials recently arrested 16 white farmers for continuing to farm past June 24 -- the date when most farmers were ordered to stop working -- leaving little doubt that some hard-liners are willing to force citizens to endure even greater hardships as they struggle to redraw the colonial map.

With the situation so dire, white farmers are increasingly questioning whether they have a future in Zimbabwe.

At the Banket country club, where dozens of farmers met recently to consider their options, union leaders pleaded with members to stay put.

"We've been harassed and terrorized for political gain, but we are still all Zimbabweans here," said Ian Barrett, who represents the farmers who produce cooking oil. "We're still here! We're still strong!"

But everyone agrees that holding on is difficult.

In the town of Chiredzi, where 15 farmers were arrested for continuing to farm, most of the men have vowed to defy the deadline. They are hiring extra guards and bracing themselves for the worst.

Officials have warned that farmers who defy the deadline will be arrested, tried and sentenced to two years in jail or a $363 fine.